No Apologies

Having rhythm in your bones is a rare gift. Few can take pride in crafting songs that are chockfull of beats that get your foot tapping, shoulders grooving... in a nutshell, body moving. Wolf Parade have it deep in their marrow. No matter how strange the voice, weird the beat. Even on the weird debut, back in the day, the Canadians made you move. Now, any shame seems to go away and Spencer Krug claimed to have picked songs he would like to dance to. And Expo 86 does little to infirm those words.

It is, indeed, a very dance-y album. All doubt erased from first lines “I was asleep in a hammock/I was dreaming that I was a web”. Keyboards sparkle here and there, leaving traces of the 80s in the air, calling all arms to fill the dancefloors of indie bars around the world. While maybe a tad less anthemic than Apologies to the Queen Mary, the album is one of those special moments in music history where all comes together and songs that get you singing the very instant are written.

It is, on the other hand, a definite rock album. Its guitars are insanely urgent, its drums deliciously pounding (and we all know Wolf Parade love to hit them drums hard), the reverbs ever-so-present. Its youth drips on the floor and Expo 86 has enough enthusiasm to give to the whole world. Krug croons and spits lines like a mad-man, keyboards make it more of a chase scene. No apologies.

Its intensity and impeccable song writing means only one thing: it feels (and probably is true) there are no bad moments on the album. It also has far too many highlights to name. An easier thing to do is hear the album from track one to track eleven. Its density means it can turn into a tiresome album. Like many soon-to-be-modern-day-masterpieces, it has layers and hidden chords you discover with each play. And here, on Expo 86, they all hit you at once, leaving you rather baffles after play one, two, three, proving it’s more of an one-on-one album in the beginning.

All you can do, all that is right to do is take your time and digest it. After that, Expo 86 will turn into your summer-festival best friend and it sounds definitely big enough to fill any festival. But most of all, it sounds like an album that will be mentioned for many years to come and that has cemented Wolf Parade’s position as one of indie-rock’s most important institutions.